


picture it soft and i ache

by boyfriem



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: 5 Times, Fluff, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-06-22 06:55:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19662133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boyfriem/pseuds/boyfriem
Summary: four times ronan lies in relation to adam, and one time he doesn't





	picture it soft and i ache

**Author's Note:**

> oh jeez it's been a while since i posted, huh? i read the call down the hawk excerpt and immediately started this fic because that shit KILLED ME, then got loaded with schoolwork and pushed it to a side tab until i finally found time to finish it, which is half a month later apparently. 
> 
> that excerpt sent me into a fit of absolute gay yearning and well, here we are
> 
> p.s. if you somehow haven't yet read the cdth excerpt you can read it [here](https://www.scribd.com/document/412369565/Call-Down-the-Hawk-Exclusive-Excerpt)
> 
> also the second half of this fic isnt edited bc at this point i just needed to have this shit done and over with ngl

i.

The first time Ronan meets Adam is in Latin class. Whelk is rambling on about something unimportant and Gansey is furiously taking notes and Ronan is not-so-inconspicuously staring at a boy he’s never seen before. 

The new boy is sitting in the row in front of him and taking notes with the sort of intense concentration Ronan has only ever seen from Gansey, and sitting in that desk, surrounded by Aglionby students, he looks so incredibly _other_. 

Ronan thought it when he saw him walking up the road on the drive to school that morning, and he thinks it now. It’s even more obvious now that he’s surrounded by other students. The raven boys of Aglionby are crisp and polished, all sharp edges and cruel smiles. This new boy is… softer. Not any kinder, exactly, he’s not a _Gansey_ , but just… _less_. 

He’s not so much. He doesn’t hurt to look at. 

He is, as a matter of fact, _very_ nice to look at. 

He’s nice to look at all through class, as Ronan’s mind wanders and Whelk scrawls conjugations across the board and Gansey jabs Ronan in the shoulder with his pencil and asks him the answers to all the questions. And he’s nice to look at afterward, as Ronan gathers his things and watches the new boy do the same.

Ronan wonders what his name is. Something short, probably. He doesn’t seem like he would have an extravagant name, not a Ronan or a Gansey. A John, maybe. Or a Paul. Or a Jacob, though even that seems a bit too much of a mouthful. 

None of those names fit him quite right. Ronan supposes he could always ask. 

There is, of course, no way in hell he’s asking. 

“Ronan,” Gansey nudges him. “Let’s go.” 

“Huh? Oh, uh…” Ronan realizes very suddenly that he and Gansey and the boy are the last three people in the room, and that his bag still isn’t packed. “You can go without me. I’ll see you in bio.” 

Gansey raises his eyebrows. “ _Will_ I?” 

“Yeah,” he nods. “Promise.” 

“If you’re not there within ten minutes of the bell, I’ll tell Declan,” Gansey threatens, but Ronan gives him an unwavering stare, and eventually he concedes and leaves the room. 

It’s sweet that he trusts Ronan. He supposes he has to go to bio now, just to make Gansey happy. He’s not too bad at bio, anyway. They’re planting bean plants right now, and he’s good at that sort of thing. 

Gansey is terrible at it, which makes two classes Ronan is currently beating Gansey in. 

He’s quite proud of that fact. 

“Hey.” 

Ronan nearly jumps. The new boy is standing in front of him, leaning on his desk. He has a bit of a southern accent, toned down like he’s trying to hide it, all smooth, rounded edges. 

Ronan shoves his notebook in his backpack and replies, “Hey.” 

The boy’s mouth twists into a thin line. He’s elegant and angular and up close, Ronan can see that his cheeks are dotted with freckles. He doesn’t like the way his heart jolts when he notices that. 

“Why were you staring at me?” the boy demands. 

“I wasn’t,” Ronan says. He manages to keep his voice calm, though his breath hitches at the accusation. People aren’t supposed to confront him when he stares at them. He’s _Ronan Lynch._

And this boy is new and has no idea of the unspoken social rules of Aglionby, and he’s nearly as tall as Ronan and doesn’t look that scrawny either. 

Ronan isn’t planning on fighting him, but knowing that when he looks at this boy he’s almost eye to eye with him certainly doesn’t help his nerves. 

“I’m not dumb,” the boy snaps. “You don’t have to like me, just leave me alone.”   
“I- what?” Ronan stutters. The boy is already leaving, storming out the door. Whelk, wiping down the board, gives Ronan a _look_. 

The warning bell rings. Ronan shoves the rest of his things into his backpack and hurries to bio. 

ii.  


“His name is Adam Parrish,” Gansey says. 

Ronan, trying (and failing) to get a few decent minutes of sleep in before lunch ends, opens his eyes lazily. “What?” 

“The new boy. The one you keep staring at.” 

“I do _not_ keep staring at him,” Ronan snaps. Since the incident in Latin on Monday, he’s avoided even _looking_ at Adam. 

That’s a good name. Adam. It suits him. 

Not that Ronan cares. 

“Well,” Gansey shrugs, “I just thought you’d like to know. I’m thinking of asking him to join us in our hunt. He seems like he’d know where to find an old Welsh king, wouldn’t you think?” 

“No,” Ronan scowls, “I wouldn’t.” 

He has no interest in being friends with Adam. He tries to make a point of not spending time around people whose faces could potentially send him into cardiac arrest. 

Gansey frowns and asks earnestly, “Why not?” 

“He’s so…” Ronan gestures aimlessly, at a loss for words. 

“Yes,” Gansey smiles, “he really is _so_. I’m gonna talk to him.” 

He stands up and goes to throw out his lunch tray, giving Ronan no choice but to follow him. “What do you mean you’re gonna go talk to him?” 

“Exactly what it sounds like, Ronan.” 

“Wait- Gansey- oh my _god_ -” Ronan grumbles a string of curses under his breath as he follows Gansey to the other end of the cafeteria, where Adam is eating alone. He’s got a math textbook open, moving his lips but making no noise as he scribbles equations with one hand and eats cold lasagna with the other. 

“What do you want?” he says the second Gansey and Ronan reach him. He looks up at them coldly. There are those freckles again. Ronan’s heart rate increases. He’s not sure why it’s doing that, but he’d very much like it to stop. 

“Hello,” Gansey sits down across the table from Adam, and Ronan takes the seat next to him. “My name is Gansey. What do you know about dead Welsh kings?” 

Adam stares at him for a long second. His gaze flicks towards Ronan, who averts his eyes, then back to Gansey. “What?” 

“Dead Welsh kings,” Gansey repeats, undeterred. “We’re looking for this king, Owen Glendower, hang on, let me get my notebook…” 

“Sorry about him,” Ronan feels the need to apologize as Gansey rummages around in his backpack. “He’s weird.” 

Adam considers this, then says, “I’ve heard of Glendower.” 

Gansey sits straight up, notebook forgotten, grinning from ear to ear. “You _have_?” 

“Yeah,” Adam nods, looking far less enthusiastic. “I read about him once, I think. I don’t remember much, though. Are y’all, like, his fan club or something?”  
“Yeah,” Ronan snorts, “we’re big Glendower fans.” 

“Well,” Adam nods towards Gansey, who’s returned to his search for his notebook, “ _he_ certainly is.” 

“So this is the notebook,” Gansey slams it down on the table. “It’s, um, well, let’s start from the beginning. Do you know what a ley line is?” 

“No. Can we talk about this later?” Adam asks in a tone that implies he has no plans to ever talk to Gansey again. “I’m kinda in the middle of something.” He gestures towards his homework. 

“Oh, uh, yeah!” Gansey says cheerfully. “I’ll be looking forward to it!” 

“Sure,” Adam nods absentmindedly. 

Gansey stands up and bounces off, clearly overjoyed to have found someone else who knows the name Glendower (what a low bar to clear, honestly), but Ronan lags behind a bit. 

“Do you want me to join your fan club?” Adam asks. He stares at Ronan in a way that seems to reach into his very being, dissecting him down to the bone. 

“Gansey wants you to.” He answers easily. 

Adam stares at him coldly. “I’m not asking about him, I’m asking about you.” 

Ronan stiffens. Adam stares, and he stares back because even if he’s extremely uncomfortable here he refuses to let Adam think he’s won at this. Whatever _this_ is. 

Ronan says, “I don’t care.” 

Adam says, “Okay.”

He looks… pleased? Satisfied? Ronan can’t tell. 

It doesn’t matter, anyways. He’s not joining their gang. Ronan won’t let him, or else it’ll surely end up in disaster. Ronan may like disastrous things, but only when they’re _his_. 

He has no control of Adam, so he won’t get close to him. Simple as that. 

iii.

Ronan bangs his head against the table a couple of times, groaning in frustration. When he sits back up, Noah is looking at him with an expression something between concern and amusement. 

They’re in their usual booth at Nino’s. Ronan and Gansey on one side, Noah and Adam on the other. Gansey is flipping through his Glendower notebook, looking for something he’s been stuck trying to find for a good ten minutes. Noah is steadily turning a stack of Ronan’s pink detention slips into paper cranes. Adam is editing Gansey’s American History essay. Ronan is doing math homework. 

Adam looks at him over the top of Gansey’s laptop. He says, dryly, “Did that solve the problem?” 

Ronan flips him off. 

“What’re you working on?” Adam pushes the laptop to the side and leans over to look at Ronan’s notebook. “Oh, your class is still doing logarithms? That’s easy, I can help you with it.” 

“That’s easy, I can help you with it,” Ronan repeats mockingly. 

Gansey looks up from his notebook indignantly. “Hey! Finish my thing first, Parrish!” 

“It’ll only take a sec,” Adam waves him off. He slides the notebook across the table to himself and plucks the pencil from Ronan’s hand. Their fingers brush together as he does, and it sends electric jolts up Ronan’s arm. 

_Why- what the fuck- why am i- what-_

“Ronan.” 

“Hnnnngh.” 

“I was asking where you are in the textbook.” Adam leans forward across the table, bringing their faces marginally closer together. Not _close_ , but clos _er_. 

Not that it matters. It’s whatever. It’s nothing. Everything is fine. Ronan is fine.

“Ronan. You good, man?” 

“I’m fine,” he snaps. His voice lacks its usual bite, but he hopes Adam doesn’t notice. Gansey and Noah certainly don’t, wrapped up in their separate activities. “It’s section 4B. Question 6.”

Adam gives him a quizzical look and his heart nearly jumps out of his chest, but all he says is. “Okay. Let’s get to work, then.” 

iv.

“Why’d you break up with Parrish?” 

Blue, standing behind the hostess stand with her arms crossed and a stack of menus in front of her, gives him an incredulous look. “Hello, Ronan. Did you come here just to ask me that?” 

He shrugs. “Maybe.” 

On his shoulder, Chainsaw squawks in affirmation. The couple standing behind him in line lean away as much as they possibly can in the crowded entrance of Nino’s. He imagines telling them that she doesn’t bite, but that would be a lie. 

“I’m not going to talk about this while I’m at work,” Blue says firmly. “I have a break at five. Wait until then if you want. Or don’t.” 

“I’ll wait,” he decides.

Her eyebrows shoot towards her choppy bangs. “Will you now.” 

Twenty minutes later, Blue finds him napping in the backseat of the beemer and taps harshly on the window, jolting him out of a fitful, dreamless sleep. 

“I gotta get back in there soon,” she says as soon as he rolls down the window, “so talk fast.” 

Ronan is beginning to think that coming here was a bad idea. He likes Blue, likes her ferocious spunk and determination, but perhaps he shouldn’t be prying around in her personal life, or Adam’s. It’s not like this is any of his business, after all. 

“Okay.” He stretches slowly and steps out of the car. “Why’d you break up with Parrish?” 

“I- Jesus, Ronan,” she sighs as if she hasn’t had all this time to think about her answer. “I never pegged you for the type of person to make enemies out of your friends’ exes.” 

“That’s not what I’m doing,” Ronan snaps. “It’s just a question.”   
Blue glares at him. He glares back. For someone so small, she’s rather fierce. 

But Ronan doesn’t lose at things, so eventually, her gaze shifts towards the ground and she says, “I guess I just don’t like him anymore. Is there something wrong with that?” 

“How could you not like him?” The words slip out before Ronan can stop them, so indignant at the idea that anyone could ever feel any lack of emotion towards Adam Parrish. He’s just not the sort of person you stop feeling for, regardless of what the feelings are. He’s all-encompassing, impossible not to be drawn to, a magnet, a fierce sun, always forced into Ronan’s path no matter what he tries to do to get rid of him. 

Maybe that’s just him.

Blue looks back up at him. “What?” 

“Nothing.”

She does the eyebrow raise again, her killer move. 

“I just mean,” Ronan is slow to speak, choosing his words extremely delicately. One wrong step, and this blows up in his face. What a stupid idea, coming here just to ask about Adam. “That he’s a good friend… and a good person… and that would probably make him a good boyfriend.” 

Blue buries her face in her hands and groans, “It’s not that simple, Ronan.” 

He doesn’t say anything. Maybe she’s right. Maybe it _isn’t_ as simple as like or don’t like and he’s stupid for thinking it is, maybe he’s the only one who feels the way he does, maybe he is, once again, weirdo, freakish Ronan. 

He says, “I don’t get it.” 

Blue says, “I can’t make you.” 

He clears his throat. Blue waits patiently for him to say something else. Finally, he puts his hands on the wheel and grumbles, “You should probably go back in.” 

“It’s only been a couple of minutes, Ronan.” 

“I have stuff to do,” he continues, glaring at her, daring her to say something else. 

She raises her eyebrows once again. “Is this not the stuff you’re doing?” 

“I’m leaving now, Sargent.” 

“Then leave.” 

Neither of them ever bring up this occurrence, not to each other and certainly not to any of their other friends, and for that, Ronan is incredibly grateful. Blue is good at keeping secrets, apparently, among other things. 

Not as good as Ronan. But good enough.

v.  


Ronan has not been happy in a long time, but he’s happy now. 

He wakes up on the couch of the barns, one leg asleep and the other dangling off the edge of the cushion. There’s a crick in his neck from sleeping at an odd angle and drool drying at the corner of his mouth, but none of that matters.

The important thing is that Adam is lying on top of him, still asleep, head nestled against his chest, hand in his. 

Ronan barely has time to savor the moment before Chainsaw, who has developed an uncanny sense for telling when he doesn’t want to be disturbed, swoops down from the rafters and begins pecking at his hand. 

“Ow! Fuck!” he snaps, swatting her away. “I’ll feed you, alright, just _give me a second_ you damn menace-” 

“Ronan?” 

“Oh,” Ronan forgets Chainsaw momentarily (she squawks indignantly, but she’ll survive) as he looks down at Adam, now awake and gazing up at him sleepily. “Good morning.” 

“What time is it?” Adam asks, his sentence punctuated by a massive yawn. 

“No clue. Does it matter? It’s Saturday.” 

“Mmm, I guess not.” Adam shifts so that his head fits snugly onto Ronan’s shoulder. “I love you, y’know.” 

Ronan’s heart nearly stops. Adam has told him he loves him before, but never without a cause, never so abruptly. He can feel a blush creeping into his cheeks as he chokes out (hopefully coherently), “Is there, uh, any reason you’re telling me this?” 

“No,” Adam smiles softly. “Just thought I should let you know.” 

“O-oh.” Ronan sputters. “Uh. I love you too.” 

Adam leans up to plant a kiss on his lips and says, “I know.” 

**Author's Note:**

> if you liked this fic check out my other ones (can't promise more trc content but there's lots of other stuff) or follow me on tumblr @boyfriem


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